Saudi Arabia's national airline orders over 100 new Airbus jets

Saudi Arabia's national airline, Saudia Group, just made a big move by ordering over 100 new Airbus jets, showing the kingdom's big plans to grow its tourism.

The order, revealed on Monday, includes 105 planes from Airbus’s A320neo family, consisting of 12 A320neos and 93 A321neos. This purchase brings Saudia Group’s total order to 144 A320neo family planes.

Saudia Group, which includes both Saudia airline and its budget carrier Flyadeal, aims to increase flights and seating capacity acrossover 100destinations.

This expansion ties in with Saudi Arabia's goal to attract over 150 million tourists by 2030.

In Airbus's latest annual earnings report in February, the company announced strong performance in its commercial aircraft business and set a target of 800 commercial aircraft deliveries for the year, which is 67 more than in 2023.

This growth highlights Airbus's strong position in the market, especially compared to its US rival, Boeing.

Boeing, which was starting to recover from two deadly crashes of its Max jets in 2018 and 2019, faced another setback on January 5 when a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9.

This incident has further affected the company’s recovery efforts.

Airbus has seen great success with its A321neo, a single-aisle aircraft seating 180 to 230 passengers.

The "neo" designation refers to the "new engine option," showing the use of highly fuel-efficient engines that help airlines cut costs.

In response, Boeing introduced the Max, a 737 model with new, efficient engines, but faced numerous technical issues.

Despite Boeing’s ongoing challenges, Airbus is not expected to significantly widen its lead in the duopoly due to already operating at maximum production capacity, with over 8,600 orders to fulfil.

(With inputs from AP News)